The Dysfunctional Family

A new day dawns.

There is always a new day, new promise, new possibilities.

No one has the perfect family-even the families who appear to.

No family is without some weirdness.

Everyone at some time or another
has wanted to run away from home.

Siblings can sometimes be a pain.

There was a woman who had two daughters.
When one got old enough to leave home, she left.
She married young and had a child
and returned to leave the child with her mother.
She took off.
Later she divorced and she married again.
She picked up her daughter and had two sons.
She took them and left for the far country.
The other daughter married, raised children,
and stayed close to home.
She talked regularly with her mother on the phone.
She was always there to help out.
On Sundays, she took her mother to church
and brought her home for Sunday dinners.
Holidays and birthdays were always celebrated together.
If there was work to do at her mother’s house, there she was.
As her mother aged, she took care of her.
Many Mother’s Days, birthdays, and holidays,
the mother didn’t hear from her far away daughter at all.
But when she did hear from her,
the mother went on and on about the phone call
or the card she received.
The mother may have done this,
hoping her close-by daughter wouldn’t look upon her sister as bad.
Still the daughter who stayed close by
felt her mother never raved about her in the same way.
But she never said this out loud to her mother.
She felt unappreciated and resentful
right through the end of her mother’s life.

After the mother’s death, this big change in the family,
would the sisters talk, visit, reach out to one another?

Some of us have been a lot luckier than others.

Pain in some families is enormous-
alcoholism, drug-addition,
physical, emotional, spiritual, sexual abuse, violence,
absent parents, judgmental, controlling parents,
bitter divorces, emotional distance, abandonment, denial.

Hurt goes deep-
difficulties with intimacy and trust,
feeling unworthy,
powerless,
obsession with perfection,
feeling abandoned or isolated.

It can be a lot.

If a family member won’t change, continues to harm,
never accepting responsibility,
sometimes there’s no choice except to keep a distance
or even end ties altogether.

We pray, Deepest and Dearest, Spirit of Life,
for healing all broken hearts.

We can’t undo the past, can’t change our childhoods.
But may we draw from resources deep within,
get support from professionals and friends,
and do all we can to be in the present.

May our own childhoods be redeemed
through our making loving, stable and safe environments now
for ourselves, our children, our chosen families.

We know that all this is easier to say than to do.

Still a new day dawns with new promise, new possibilities.

Stronger, healthier families are possible.

No families are trouble free.
There are financial problems, health challenges, difficulties.

But, families are stronger and healthier
who share affection, appreciation,
frequent and fruitful honest, open communication
and time together.

This builds adaptability, flexibility, willingness to try new things.
Crises can be dealt with in constructive ways.

Warmth and good will help in good times and in bad.

David Olson, author of Building Relationships, says,
“Healthy families change; unhealthy families remain stuck.”

Successful families are not isolated;
they are connected to a community.
Being here today and Sunday after Sunday
strengthens you and your relationships.

If you have no family,
or if the family you have can’t give you what you need, create one.

A young woman in our congregation celebrated her birthday
and had people from six decades of life celebrating with her.
None of them are from her family of origin.
She introduced me to one of the women
on her Committee of Mothers.

The story of the two sisters is our human story.
Sometimes the only way we know how to be our own selves,
is to break away from our families.

Sometimes the only way we know to stay connected
is to lose ourselves.

You can’t go home or you can’t leave home.

A great challenge in life for all our relationships
is to be our self and be connected.
The one daughter kept trying and trying to win
her mother’s approval.
She over-functioned all over the place.
The more she did, the more people let her do.
She didn’t say, “I will do this and no more.”
If there’s not enough separation, there’s no real relationship.

Her sister under-functioned
and was cut off from the love she needed.
If there’s too much emotional distance, there’s also no relationship.

Sometimes in families, one person is identified as the problem.
Family theory, as described by Rabbi Edwin Friedman,
teaches that “by keeping the focus on one of its members,
the family…can deny the very issues
that contributed to making one of its members symptomatic.”

The presenting issue may not be where attention is needed.
Parents complain of a child who is acting out, rebellious, running with the wrong crowd, moody, depressed, belligerent,
doing badly in school…

But the family systems counselor explores
the relationship between the parents
or one parent’s relationship with one of their parents or a sibling.
New insights are gained.
One person’s behavior changes,
and the whole family gains health.

Family theory treats crisis not as something to be avoided,
but as an opportunity for bringing change, growth,
and benefits for all — if people can remain non-anxious,
self-differentiated and connected.

Self-differentiation maximizes “I” statements
rather than blaming “You” statements…

If a couple of family members go off and complain about another,
they stabilize their own relations,
but lose the health and wholeness of the family.

Attempts by someone to keep apart two people,
say a parent trying to keep apart a child and the child’s friend,
practically seals their staying together.

And the person trying “to help” carries the stress.

When people try to change the relationship of two others,
say parents try to change the relationship
between their two children,
they stabilize the situation they are trying to change.
Attempts by one person to bring two people together
keeps them apart.

Rabbi Friedman teaches in his book Generation to Generation
that “we can only change a relationship to which we belong.
Therefore, the way to bring change
to the relationship of two others
(and no one said it would be easy)
is to try to maintain a well-defined relationship with each,
and to avoid the responsibility
for their relationship with one another.”

Along side “I” statements, connection and a non-anxious presence,
playfulness and humor are health boosters.

I was handed a note this morning — “put the fun back in dysfunction!”

Rabbi Friedman teaches that circumstances,
that could be disastrous,
are handled objectively
when emotions can become calm and positive.

Rabbi Jesus had something to offer on family systems too.

Some of the people around Jesus were complaining
that he was hanging out with the wrong sort,
prostitutes and tax collectors.

So he told parables.
One was-
“There was a man who had two sons.
The younger said to his father,
‘Father, I want right now what’s coming to me.’
So the father divided his living between them.

Not many days later, the younger son packed his bags
and left for a distant country.
There, undisciplined and dissipated, he wasted everything he had.
After he had gone through all his money,
there was a bad famine all through that country,
and he was hurting.
He signed on with a citizen there,
who assigned him to his fields to slop the pigs.
He was so hungry
he would have eaten the corn-cobs in the pig slop,
but no one would give him any.

That brought him to his senses.
He said, ‘All those farmhands working for my father
sit down to three meals a day, and here I am starving to death.
I’m going back to my father.
I’ll say to him, ‘Father, I’ve sinned against heaven,
I’ve sinned before you;
I don’t deserve to be called your son.
Take me on as a hired hand.’

He got right up and went home to his father.

When he was still a long way off, his father saw him.
His heart pounding, he ran out, embraced him, and kissed him.
The son started to speak…
‘I don’t deserve to be called your son ever again.’
But the father wasn’t listening. He was calling to the help,
‘Quick bring a clean set of clothes and dress him.
Put the family ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.
Then bring a side of beef and roast it.
We’re going to feast! We’re going to have a wonderful time!
My son is here-given up for dead and now alive again!
Given up for lost and now found!
And they began to have a wonderful time.

“All this time his older son was out in the field.
When the day’s work was done he came in.
As he approached the house, he heard the music and dancing.
Calling over one of the help, he asked what was going on.
He told him, ‘Your brother came home.
Your father has ordered a feast
because he has him home safe and sound.’

The older brother stalked off in an angry sulk
and refused to join in.

His father came out and tried to talk to him, but he wouldn’t listen.
The son said, ‘Look how many years I’ve stayed here serving you,
never giving you one moment of grief,
but have you ever thrown a party for me and my friends?
Then this son of yours who has thrown away your money
on whores shows up and you go all out with a feast!’

“His father said, ‘Son, you don’t understand.
You’re with me all the time, and everything that is mine is yours-
but this is a wonderful time, and we have to celebrate.
This brother of yours was dead, and he’s alive!
He was lost, and is found.’”

Some times wandering is the way to come to know life and love.

Some times staying close by, being dutiful,
you never know yourself.

You been around, working hard
and all the attention seems to go to welcoming someone else.
You cut yourself off from life and love.

Early in the story the younger son insults the father.
In that culture, wanting his inheritance
is like wishing his father was dead.

Later in the story the older son is insulting too.
In front of everyone gathered for the celebration,
he challenges him.

Jesus leaves us wondering.

Will the older brother come in and celebrate?

In the time and place of the story,
an upstanding father didn’t run in front of the neighbors to greet his dishonorable son.

A good host never left his guests,
especially not to be insulted by his son when the neighbors were over for a party.

The father didn’t care about his reputation and standing.
He ran to embrace one son.
He stayed outside in the yard with the other son, inviting him in.

Jesus leaves us wondering.

Will the sisters call each other?

Will the brothers reconcile?

Who will you run to greet?

Who will you stand in the yard and talk to forever?

There is always a new day, new promise, new possibilities.

Will you come inside?

Will you join in a banquet of reconciliation,
a feast of abundance,
a celebration of life and love?

Will you?
 ♦